Slashdot Mirror
Former Turkish DMOZ Editor Draws 10 Months In Jail
makne writes "H. Ertas, a Turkish editor of the Open Directory Project (www.dmoz.org) has been sentenced to 10 months in prison after being found guilty of editing a category about the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK). Ertas's lawyer, Suna Coskun, explained that his client had worked as a voluntary editor at the Open Directory Project during his studies at the Euphrat-University and had been responsible for the Kurdish category. At the same time he became interested in Kurds and undertook his own research into the subject. As a voluntary editor, he had sorted the directory submissions but could not be responsible for their content. Therefore there could be no penalty under international law, according to Coskun. His activities could in no way be understood as 'support for a terrorist organisation' and thus Ertas' release was appropriate. The court sentenced Ertas to 10 months in prison and a fine of 416 million Turkish lire ($293). The sentence is not eligible for probation." (Read on for more.)
By email, makne writes "I don't know the editor personally, but the editor was first arrested two years ago, then released on parole until now. Members of the editor community
have tried to help him in any way they can, with no apparent success. The editor resigned from the ODP in 2002."
Makne also provided this link to a summary (from the Kurdish point of view) of earlier attempts to stifle Kurdish sites, including a campaign to have DMOZ's then-parent company Netscape remove the Kurdish category from DMOZ.
Where's the news? I see four links in the summary and none of them points to the news about the sentence.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
That's what I thought, but keep in mind that in another EU country you can get arrested for publicly supporting certain political parties. Namely, in Germany it's against the law to be part of certain neo-nazi ideologies and holocaust denial.
And in fact, I'm not sure I'm opposed to that eevn though it's certainly a limitation of my right of free speech. But then, what gives me the right to tell the Turkish government which ideologies are "dangerous". I guess that's why this kind of legislation is never a good idea in the first place.
OTOH, of course the situation is not the same. It's not illegal to report about illegal ideologies in Germany, even if you did so in a rather positive way, I guess. There certainly are Wikipedia entries about them.
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Right now Turkey is extremely sensitive to criticism about human rights violations since they are applying for EU membership. This is quite controversial, so it's easy to find politicians who could have an interest in bringing this case to the forefront. Try to find the representatives involved in foreign affairs.
Disclaimer: I'm a supporter of Turkey's EU membership, but I'm an even greater supporter of free speech.
Any sufficiently advanced libertarian utopia is indistinguishable from government.
This story is bullshit. The story takes reference of the news article in: http://www.mhanews.com/modules.php?name=News&file= article&sid=9485
BUT... Let's take a look at the real news article in NTV MSNBC, who takes the story from AA. Anadolu Ajansi (Anatolian Agency, the official (read STATE) news agency of Turkey. The STATE news agency of the Republic of Turkey publishes this kind of story. So the state kills Kurds? Yeah right..
http://www.ntvmsnbc.com/news/297724.asp?cp1=1
The first (Kurdish site which claims that it has published the information) has sentences removed from the original article! Take a look at those.
1. The Kurdish site makes him to be seen as a Kurdish hero, but in the original article, H. Ertas claims that he does not have any kind of sympaty to the terrorist group. A hero that denies the link would of course won't be a good story.
2. In his computer, e-mails of himself that contains propaganda of Kurdish terrorist and separatory acts has been found.
3. His lawyer says that they'll go to appeal. Go on, it's open. The Kurdish site seems that he has been sentected without judgement.
4. The Kurdish site is in Turkish, their TV is in Turkish, their newspaper published in several European Countries is in Turkish. Blah.
Believe me, he wouldn't be sentenced for nothing. It's not illegal in Turkey to talk Kurdish, to be Kurdish (several ministers, even several of the most beloved prime ministers were Kurdish). It's just illegal to:
1. Kill people in terrorist acts.
2. Claim ownership in a territory of the country, which is known and acknowledged by the world.
I'm sure that these are all illegal in other countries also.
If you live in Europe, especially in northern Europe, you would not understand such dynamics and therefore you may see PKK/KADEK as a nice group claiming their rights. But maybe citizens of southern Europe countries, who know at least a little of terrorism, may see the acts of Turkey is to protect its people and its own land.
They do have the ability and they did react quickly, however to no avail apparently. There was great discussion inside DMOZ about this situation and editors made many suggestions, but in the end it comes down to this: the Open Directory Project's aim is to disseminate information, not to use that information for specific purposes. Initially IIRC, the category was sequestered while possible options were examined, but in the end, to paraphrase some slash-dotter, information wants to be free.
The Turkish government may be malign, but they aren't stupid and they understood that Ertas' collection of data did have an effect. In some ways, editors function like good journalists; they don't create news, but they find it and highlight it in categories which they create and place in the larger structure of the Directory. This makes the data accessible to more people who don't have to search the whole 'net for it. Creating a category makes a statement if you think about it. It says that the information in this category is worthy of consideration because somebody has organized the data in a way which emphasizes its significance in ways which the viewer may not have imagined were it not for the efforts of the editor.
Editors are encouraged in their efforts to make novel and interesting collections of web sites and to lodge them within the greater structure of the Directory. It's one of the things that makes the Open Directory Project great and hugely useful.
For more information on this subject, go to the Open Directory and type kurds into the search box. Failing that, here are some relevant DMOZ categories: Ethnicity Kurdish, History, Kurdistan or Kurdish Human Rights. See also this category Descriptiont
In times of trouble, the smell of frying onions usually gives confidence and comfort.